Scissor grinder

In addition, the itinerant craft was practiced by the so-called traveling people, including Sinti and Roma, and is one of the traditional occupations of the Yenish, especially in Central and Western Europe.

Thus, demand increasingly diminished as cutlery was used less overall in the domestic sphere as a result of the decline in general agricultural activity and the changing supply and buying patterns of food and textiles.

Since the end of the 20th century, the reduced general need for re-sharpening dulled knives and scissors has been served mostly by a dwindling number of mobile small entrepreneurs, some of whom move around nationwide, as an itinerant trade, and by various stationary specialized businesses, some of which are dispatched by mail.

Subsequently, the increasing qualitative and quantitative demands on the products led to a further division of labor in the form of splitting up the manufacturing process and new occupational groups emerged, such as the blacksmith, heat treating, grinders, sword sweepers and later the reiders.

In the case of both knives and scissors, the blades wear out depending on the type and duration of use, in that the sharp edges are initially bent to the side in the minimal range during use, and subsequently torn out and become chipped, which makes recurring sharpening or re-sharpening necessary.

This gave rise to the itinerant trade of the knife and scissors sharpener, who moved across the country and through the cities with his standard equipment, usually a grinding wheel, offering and providing resharpening.

"[5] The wandering craftsmen often came from the then Welschtirol (later: Trentino) and belonged mainly to a few families from the high valley Val Rendena – also called Valle dei Moleti (German: Tal der Messerschleifer) – north of Riva del Garda.

Another region of origin was the Résia in Friuli, Italy, where there was (also) too little work and the men traveled as scissor grinders, so-called "Arrotini," throughout Europe and especially through the former lands of Austria-Hungary to ensure the survival of their families.

[11][12] In addition to the journeymen and the seasonal migrant workers, such as the so-called Hollandgänger, the permanent migration of social fringe groups, who moved as vagrants and beggars through the rural areas or lived from trade or small crafts as peddlers, scissor grinders and tinkers, was one of the phenomena of the 18th and 19th centuries.

According to the Westphalian State Museum of Art & Cultural History director Willi Kulke, the number of itinerant craftsmen was far greater than the historical account would indicate at the beginning of the 21st century, because written records are more than inadequate for these occupations in particular.

[11] In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Yenish, who came from the rural poor classes in Tyrol, Switzerland and southern Germany, began to migrate and, as a traditional fringe group of society, practiced occupations similar to those of the ethnic minorities of the Roma and Sinti: "basket maker, ragpickers and [in particular also] scissors grinders".

However, the focus was on the economic aspects, such as the complaints of merchants and craftsmen or their associations about "the allegedly business-damaging competition of peddlers," while the social issues of their activity were neglected.

In 1898/99, the Verein für Socialpolitik published its findings under the title Untersuchungen über die Lage des Hausiergewerbes in Deutschland (Studies on the Situation of the Peddling Trade in Germany) in five volumes, in which the association described in detail, among other things, both the negative contemporary opinion of the lives of itinerant merchants and craftsmen and the increasing state sanctions and regulations, such as the restrictive issuance of itinerant trade licenses.

[15] Meanwhile, however, the Verein für Socialpolitik also found in its report, "The pan-menders, basket-makers, scissor-grinders [...] belong in part to the Gypsies, but on the whole they are already of a different kind and already form a more solid group of the wandering people, since they at least carry on useful trades and were more confined in their journeys to certain areas.

"[16][17] In the 1920s and into the 1930s, there was once again an increase in the number of scissor grinders and peddlers: the Great Depression and mass unemployment forced people to earn a living with petty trade or auxiliary craft activities "on the streets.

[17] In Germany, from the beginning of the 19th century until the Porajmos in the Nazi era, there were often campsites of the traveling people in regions with a corresponding need for recurring crafts and maintenance work such as re-sharpening cutting tools.

Although the racially motivated persecution of the itinerant people by the Nazi Germany ended with the Second World War, exclusion and a lack of social participation continued in the German successor states.

In this respect, the wandering scissor grinders and other itinerant craftsmen who reappeared in the postwar period and with the onset of the economic miracle continued to be met with prejudice and discriminated against as "gypsies.

The sharpening of scissors and cutting tools of many kinds "on the grinding machine requires a particularly good eye, excellent knowledge of materials, and a decidedly steady hand.

[33] As in Germany, there is also no vocational training for knife and scissors sharpeners in Austria, Switzerland and Italy (South Tyrol), so that the necessary specialist knowledge and skills can only be acquired by "learning".

[38] In contrast, many of the still existing, mostly medium-sized companies in the clothing and textile industry in Germany, such as in the Swabian Alb region, are regularly visited by scissor grinders who do their work on site until the present day (2020).

In addition, there are some "travel grinders" who offer their services nationwide on fixed dates at retail outlets such as home and metal goods stores, as well as at consumer fairs.

Such wet and belt grinders can also be found in some cases at sharpening and grinding services in Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and some other European countries; they are also widely used by other craft users.

In some cases, these mobile grinding services also offer special repair work or take on related additional services such as the dressing or grinding of cutting boards and chopping blocks made of plastic or wood, which is regularly required in catering and slaughterhouses, in accordance with the HACCP EC hygiene standard.The trade of "itinerant" knife and scissors sharpeners is generally under increasing market pressure as a result of globalization.

Thus, for the normal consumer with lower demands, the replacement of blunt cutting tools by new acquisition is now usually cheaper and also causes less effort than regular professional re-sharpening.

In contrast, a few large and many long-established niche manufacturers for the professional needs of knives and other cutlery, which in Germany, for example, are mainly based in Solingen, have been able to hold their own in the market and have even been able to record sales growth since the end of the 2000s.

In addition, in more recent times, in the former regions of origin of the "Moleta" and "Arrotini" in Italy and the "Afiladores" in Spain, some places of memory have been created, dedicated to the history of the scissors grinders with special museums, exhibitions, events and in the form of monuments.

A (bawdy) folk song that takes up the theme of the wandering men and is still sung in the present day (2020) in southern Germany at festivities or at many a later hour in the tavern is called Wir sind die Schleifer.

Another memorial site is located in the Résia Valley in Friuli, Italy, in the municipality of Resia in the district of Stolvizza, the "village of the Arrotini", the scissors grinders.

A monument previously inaugurated in 1998, consisting of a large bronze bas-relief carved into a boulder, depicts an arrotini with his typical converted "scissor-grinder's bicycle" from the 1960s.